In an effort to incentivize more New Yorkers to get inoculated, Mayor Bill de Blasio hinted that some coronavirus safety rules and restrictions could disappear with higher vaccination rates. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is so far mum after some of his city's police officers were seen on an alarming video being harassed by a group of men. The city’s largest police union posted. 18 hours ago For months, de Blasio has offered the same pabulum about the crime jump: “Everything’s interconnected, bringing back the city, bringing back the jobs, bringing back the schools,” he says. 2 hours ago Thousands of city workers who took unpaid furlough days will get that money back starting this summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Saturday. Capture one pc. About 9,500 city.
Thousands of city workers who took unpaid furlough days will get that money back starting this summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Saturday.
About 9,500 city employees were forced to take five days of furlough between October 2020 and March as the city faced an unprecedented budget crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It would have saved the city about $21 million, de Blasio announced back in September. The furlough applied to managerial positions, non-union jobs, and City Hall staffers.
On Saturday, the mayor said the federal stimulus puts the city in a 'much better place,' allowing for the employees' payback.
'Public servants have gone above and beyond to serve New Yorkers this past year,' de Blasio said in a statement.
Employees can sign up to reclassify their furlough days in June and will receive the money back in July.
Last summer, 22,000 city employees narrowly avoided layoffs due to negotiations between the de Blasio administration and municipal unions. Under an October deal with the city's largest union—District Council 37—the city agreed not to lay off any members until the end of June.
In March, President Joe Biden and a Congress newly-controlled by Democrats narrowly passed a COVID relief package that would direct $6 billion in coronavirus relief funds to New York City. It was about $3 billion short of an earlier request from the mayor. But after months of persistent pleas for local aid from the federal government, the mayor had applauded the federal assistance.
NYC news never sleeps. Get the Gothamist Daily newsletter and don't miss a moment.
Do you know the scoop?Comment below or Send us a Tip
A majority of the leading Democratic candidates running for mayor of New York City said they plan to retain a controversial policy adopted by the de Blasio administration that accommodates the Orthodox Jewish community on a risky circumcision practice known as metzitzah b’peh, which can transmit herpes to an infant.
Five candidates who responded to a survey the Forward sent to eight of the leading contenders for the June 22 primaries said they wouldn’t seek to change Mayor Bill de Blasio’s policy that allows the ritual circumciser, or mohel, to clean the circumcision wound by oral suction but bans mohels implicated in cases where infant boys have contracted herpes.
One candidate took the middle-of-the-road approach, saying he would seek to balance protecting religious rights and public health, and the remaining two leading candidates didn’t take a position.
The issue has been a political football in citywide races in the last decade due to the city’s Orthodox populations, a voting bloc that has proved influential in the past and could be even more so in this year’s experiment with ranked-choice voting. De Blasio barely avoided a run-off in the crowded Democratic primary in 2013 in part by winning the support of some Orthodox communities in Brooklyn. Those who embrace metzitzah b’peh appreciated his signaled intent to repeal a rule instituted by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg that required parents to sign a consent form acknowledging the risks of the practice. At least 22 children contracted herpes from the practice between 2004 and 2020, according to city records.
In 2015, the city’s Board of Health voted to repeal the consent form regulation after reaching a deal with representatives of the Hasidic community. In return, rabbinical leaders agreed to cooperate with the city’s agency in identifying mohels who were in contact with herpes-infected infants and ban them from performing oral suction. The mayor admitted two years later that the city failed to enforce the new regulations after six additional cases were reported.
Andrew Yang, the frontrunner according to recent polls who has invested time courting the city’s Orthodox Jews, faced backlash for a stance he took against circumcision when he was running for president in 2020. He immediately diffused the matter by committing to protect religious freedom.
“As mayor, I will respect freedom of religion,” Yang told the Forward in February. “I will not get in the way of anyone’s right to circumcise their children and maintain the traditions of their faith.” The clarification earned him praise in Brooklyn’s Orthodox communities.
In a recent interview on the Daily Beast’s ״The New Abnormal” podcast, Yang maintained that his personal stance against circumcision hasn’t changed. “I have and had a personal viewpoint on circumcision that is constant and is the same as it ever was,” Yang said in the interview published on Tuesday. “I just don’t think that our government should have a role in very intimate personal family decisions.”
“Even if babies get herpes?” Harry Siegel, the publication’s senior editor asked.
To which Yang responded, “I can have my own viewpoint on what people’s decision should be. But I also recognize that it’s not my job to have my viewpoint somehow dictate policy to influence other families’ decisions at that level.”
Eric Adams, Brooklyn’s borough president, said in his response to the Forward survey, sent to the candidates in January, that he would “work collaboratively with community leaders in respect of religious customs while prioritizing enforcement against individual actors who threaten the health and safety of theirNeighbors.”
Workbench mac download. Adams added, “The city’s current policy reflects that goal, and it should be regularly evaluated to ensure it continues to do so.”
May Wiley, who served as a counsel to de Blasio, and Shaun Donovan, who served in the Bloomberg administration, echoed that sentiment, pledging to retain the current policy.
De Blasio Twitter
Kathryn Garcia, most recently the commissioner for the city’s sanitation department, suggested that the ban, while well-intended, has not worked. “The practice continues and families with infants who became infected have been unwilling to cooperate with health officials,” she said. “Distrust between the community and the city’s health department has only worsened over the pandemic and set us back further.” Garcia said that there needs to first be a rest in the relationship between City Hall and the Orthodox community “so that we can all move forward together.”
Ray McGuire, a former Citibank executive, pledged to “work with communities and public health experts to find a balance between public health and religious liberty.”
Nyc Mayor's Office Twitter
Scott Stringer, the city’s comptroller, and Dianne Morales, a former non-profit executive, didn’t respond to the question by press time.